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Shannon Briggs hires Chris Byrd as his trainer
The last U.S. heavyweight champion of the world Shannon Briggs (56-6-1, 49 KOs) has made a major addition to his team. Former two-time heavyweight champion Chris Byrd will now train Briggs. The pair recently begin training together in sunny South Florida. Briggs has excelled offensively for years where Byrd was seen by many as a defensive specialist during his two reigns as world champ. Byrd himself is in superb physical shape scaling near a slim but fit 185 pounds. Both former world champs shared their thoughts on teaming up.
“Throughout my career I have been known for and successful with my offense,” said Briggs. “However, I will be the first to admit that defense has never been my strong point. I have been boxing professionally for over 20 years but I feel it’s never too late late to learn.
“For the first time in my career I have someone in my corner in Chris who has done it at the highest level with defense being a main component of the success. You add defense to my game with Chris’ help and I will be more than ever a force to deal with. Chris was one of the first boxers I knew from back when he was on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team. I’m excited to work with Chris who has already been to the top twice and like myself beat the odds to get there. Many forget that Chris was the first to defeat a then prime unbeaten Vitali Klitschko winning the fight inside the distance to win his first world title. How ironic it is that he will be training me as I’m in pursuit to fight and defeat Vitali’s brother Wladimir for the world titles!”
Byrd stated, “I can honestly tell you that if I had the physical tools that Shannon has to work with I would still be heavyweight champion of the world right now. Any fighter that I train with enough time is going to learn defense. That’s just a given. I’ll bring the defense out of Shannon for sure. I’m very excited to be working with Shannon on his achieving his goal of becoming world champion once again.”
Courtesy of FNews.
“Throughout my career I have been known for and successful with my offense,” said Briggs. “However, I will be the first to admit that defense has never been my strong point. I have been boxing professionally for over 20 years but I feel it’s never too late late to learn.
“For the first time in my career I have someone in my corner in Chris who has done it at the highest level with defense being a main component of the success. You add defense to my game with Chris’ help and I will be more than ever a force to deal with. Chris was one of the first boxers I knew from back when he was on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team. I’m excited to work with Chris who has already been to the top twice and like myself beat the odds to get there. Many forget that Chris was the first to defeat a then prime unbeaten Vitali Klitschko winning the fight inside the distance to win his first world title. How ironic it is that he will be training me as I’m in pursuit to fight and defeat Vitali’s brother Wladimir for the world titles!”
Byrd stated, “I can honestly tell you that if I had the physical tools that Shannon has to work with I would still be heavyweight champion of the world right now. Any fighter that I train with enough time is going to learn defense. That’s just a given. I’ll bring the defense out of Shannon for sure. I’m very excited to be working with Shannon on his achieving his goal of becoming world champion once again.”
Courtesy of FNews.
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